Page 12 of Kings Fear No One
Teysha does too—she wobbles to her feet and collects her basket and two pieces of fruit. The guard shoves her some more to get her going.
I breathe what feels like fire. I talk myself off the ledge. Remind myself now’s not the time.
Now wouldn’t make a difference. I can’t change anything.
Yet.
“Boy, this is the last time we’re telling you!” snaps Amos. He thrusts a finger at the pickup truck. “Hurry the fuck up!”
The violent screams go mute. The urges melt away. I unclench my fists and pick up the bag of blankets and take them to the truck like I’m told.
Not now. But soon.
“You were right,” Hershel says, looking over to me. “A storm’s coming.”
I grunt in answer, wiping down my workman boots with a rag.
The cabin’s lit only by the melted wax candle perched on the windowsill. Shadows cover the rest of the confined space. Several of the others have already crawled into their bunkbeds for the night; it’s easier to go to sleep on empty stomachs than stay awake through the evening.
No supper for us tonight.
Not unusual. But no less cruel.
“I wonder if the storm’ll make them cancel the celebration,” Hershel goes on when I say nothing. He strokes his overgrown beard that resembles a white cloud more than anything. “It could get real nasty for a few days.”
Though Hershel’s just looking for conversation, I can’t bring myself to answer.
My mind’s still on earlier. The laundry’s been long done. The other chores have been finished up. All believers have been returned to their cabins.
Yet I’m stuck on what I’d witnessed. I’m witnessing more of it as Teysha crawls onto her bottom bunk. Her cheek’s swelled up from the hit she took. Her knees are bruised from spending so long bending over in dirt, picking fruit from bushes.
Neither seem to register. Just like the strap of her dress being down hadn’t.
She’s compartmentalizing, clutching her gold cross pendant and muttering words.
Prayers.
She’s not really here right now.
When Grace and I first got married, I was bitter and angry. I still hadn’t learned the dynamics of the Chosen Saints. The first few months we were married, we kept our distance. The only time we were together was when we had to perform our marital duty. Usually at the whim of the Leader.
But after a while, some attachment formed. Our marriage had not happened out of love or a desire to spend our lives together. It had been forced under the guise of the Chosen Saints. We were stuck with each other.
We learned to make that enough. We became each other’s sanity check.
As fucked up as it is to admit, I could find a crumb of pleasure after that. In the things we were forced to do, I could pretend it was good. I could enjoy Grace and feel no guilt. Come to hate myself less for what I was doing to her. Blame myself less for letting it happen.
The bright spot we found together wasn’t enough for Grace.
It couldn’t erase the rest of the darkness. It couldn’t save her from the nights she was called to the Leader’s quarters.
She was found one morning hanging from the tree outside our cabin, a belt wrapped around her neck.
I’ve wondered if it could’ve been different. If maybe there was something I could’ve done. I should’ve got in when the Leader called her into his bedroom. I shouldn’t’ve pretended I couldn’t hear Brody when he came looking for her in the middle of the night.
Would any of it have mattered?
The questions are still turning in my head when I set aside my workman boots and toss my rag. Hershel interrupts himself in the middle of his sentence as he watches me get up and walk over to the bunk where Teysha’s sitting.
